The Millionaires - Brad Meltzer [22]
“I don’t understand.”
“What are we still doing here?” I ask as I stand from my seat. “Shep just had us nailed for swiping three million bucks—but does he tell Lapidus? Does he tell Quincy? Does he call in his buddies from the Secret Service? No, no, and no. He walks away and saves the conversation for later.”
“So?” Charlie says with a shrug.
“So what’s the first rule of Law Enforcement 101?”
“Be a power-mad donkey’s ass every time you pull someone over?”
“I’m serious, Charlie—it’s page one in the rulebook: Don’t let the bad guys get away. If Shep smells something wrong, he’s supposed to go straight to the boss.”
“See, now you’re reaching. Maybe he’s just giving us a chance to explain.”
“Or maybe he’s—” I stop mid-step. Up goes the suspicious eyebrow. “How well do you know this guy, Charlie?”
“Oh, c’mon…” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Now you think Shep’s the thief?”
“It makes perfect sense when you think about it. How else would he know about the original Duckworth fax?”
“He told you, Sherlock—he saw it come in…”
“Charlie, do you have any idea how many hundreds of faxes come in here every day? Unless Shep spends his days hunting through every fax in the building, there’s no way he’d find it. So either someone tipped him off before it got here… or somehow, some way…”
“… he knew it was coming,” he says, completing my thought. His mouth gapes open. His body stiffens, like his blood’s running cold. “You really think he…”
“You don’t know him at all, do you?” I ask.
“W-We hang out at work.”
“We should get out of here,” I blurt. I take off and rush to the door.
“Right now?”
“The longer we sit here, the more likely we’ll be tagged as scapegoa—” Tearing the door open, I look up. There’s a figure in the doorway.
With his chest in my face, Shep steps forward, forcing me to step back. Once he’s in the room, he whips the door shut. He studies Charlie, then stares at me. His thick neck keeps his head brutally arched, but it’s not an attack—he’s taking our measure. Weighing. Calculating. It’s like one of those silences at the end of a first date—where decisions get made.
“I’ll split it with you,” Shep says.
6
Excuse me?” I ask as Charlie moves in next to me.
“No joke,” Shep says. “Three ways—a million each.”
“You gotta be kidding,” Charlie blurts.
“So it was you who sent the first letter,” I say.
Shep stays silent.
So does Charlie. His teeth flick against his bottom lip. Half of it’s disbelief and the other half ’s…
Charlie’s whole face lights up.
.… pure adrenalized excitement.
“This could easily be the single best day of my life,” Charlie beams. The boy couldn’t hold a grudge if it was glued to his chest. I’m different.
Turning to Shep, I add, “You were just in here blaming us, and now you expect us to hold hands and be partners?”
“Listen, Oliver, you can chew my head off all you want, but just realize if you blow the whistle on me, I’m gonna blow it right back on you.”
I cock my head sideways. “Are you threatening me?”
“That depends what you want the outcome to be,” Shep shoots back.
Standing in front of my desk, I watch Shep carefully. Deep down, I may not be a thief, but I’m also no sucker.
“We’re all here for the same thing,” Shep quickly adds. “So you can either be a mule and get nothing, or you can share the profits and walk away with a little something in your pocket.”
“I vote for the profits,” Charlie interrupts.
“Screw this,” I say, storming to the door. “Even I’m not that stupid.”
Shep reaches out and grabs me by the biceps. Not hard—just enough to stop me. “It’s not stupid, Oliver.” As Shep says the words, the swagger’s gone. So’s the Secret Service. “If I wanted to blame it on you… or turn you in… I’d be talking to Lapidus right now. Instead, I’m here.”
Even as I pull away, Shep has my undivided attention.
He looks up at the NYU diploma on my wall and studies it carefully. “You think you’re the only ones who have that dream? When I first signed up with the Service, I thought I was going